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Celtics Notes: Smart, Irving, Team Chemistry, Brown

April 19th 2022 at 8:54pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

Celtics point guard Marcus Smart reflected on Monday on his new 2022 Defensive Player of the Year hardware, per Jared Weiss of The Athletic.

Weiss notes that Smart is the first guard to win the award since SuperSonics guard Gary Payton earned it in 1996. Payton, who also played for the Celtics during the 2004/05 season, was present to celebrate Smart’s victory at a Monday practice.

“To be able to win this award, I’m ecstatic, it means a lot,” Smart said. “It shows that the hard work I’ve been putting in has finally paid off and the recognition has finally come.”

This season, with a defense led by Smart and center Robert Williams, the Celtics ranked first in opponent points allowed per game, with 104.5, and second in defensive rating, at 106.9 points permitted per 100 possessions.

Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston makes the case for why Smart was the right choice for the award, citing not just his defensive metrics but also his savvy actions that can’t quite be quantified, such as his impressive switching and layup contesting.

There’s more out of Boston:

  • Marcus Smart broke down his defensive matchup Sunday against former Celtics teammate Kyrie Irving with Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe. “All I was thinking about was, ‘OK, it’s just me and you Kyrie,” Smart said. “‘Here we go.’” Boston beat Irving’s Nets, 115-114, to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Though Irving had a stellar night in scoring 39 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the floor, Smart and his fellow Boston defenders pressured Irving to get rid of the ball and blanketed him in the paint during a decisive fourth quarter.
  • The Celtics appear to have taken significant leaps in team chemistry since their 4-1 first-round 2021 playoff loss to the Nets last season, writes Jared Weiss of The Athletic. Last year, star shooting guard Jaylen Brown was sidelined with a wrist fracture, while Robert Williams was playing through turf toe. “I think that’s one of the bigger progressions of our team, just when something breaks down,” All-Star forward Jayson Tatum said of the difference between that 2020/21 Boston club and this year’s model. “They go on a run, we have a couple slip-ups on defense. We care. It’s an emotional game. So it’s not going to be a quiet huddle, we got to talk it out. But the main thing is we figure it out right then and there. And we all on the same page and we come out of the huddle and move on to the next play.”
  • Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown dealt with nose bleeds after Game 1 on Sunday, telling reporters that it kept bleeding about every 45 minutes that night, per Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). “But that’s playoff basketball,” Brown said. “It’s survival of the fittest.” Brown took contact to the face multiple times throughout the game Sunday, but played through to finish with 23 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the floor.
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